Luke Wakes Up
by Lord22
Summary: What follows is a novelization of the secret ending to Rise of Skywalker, which unfortunately was unable to be put to film because of a fire. Luke Skywalker has had a vision of a dark future, but Han has an alternate interpretation of events.


**Luke Wakes Up:**

Luke Skywalker, Hero of the Rebellion, woke up.

His head was pounding like a hammer was hitting the inside of his skull over and over. Pulling himself up, visions of a dark and stupid universe crossed his mind. Struggling up, he found himself with furs over his body. Throwing it off, he staggered up and nearly fell.

He tried to focus himself as Yoda had taught him and found he couldn't remember where he was, or why. Rubbing his head, he found the wooden structure around him was familiar. There was a Death Star exploding in his recent memory. Or was that Starkiller Base?

No, he hadn't been there. Staggering on, he rubbed his forehead. "Ugh... What did I..."

Then 3PO shuffled into the room. "Master Luke, I am overjoyed to see you awake. Princess Leia and Master Solo were immensely worried."

Leia and Solo? Weren't they dead? What was he thinking, they'd been drinking yesterday, hadn't they? "3PO, what... what happened? Why am I alive?"

"Oh, dear? Have you lost your memory?" said 3PO. "What is the last thing you remember? I did warn against ingesting such an immense amount of Ewok liquor but-"

"I... I remember seeing..." said Luke, remembering watching himself and others die in unceremonious ways. Was force teleportation even possible? It seemed absurd, but given that the Emperor had cracked down on knowledge of the force, maybe it was? "Where's Han?"

Had he been seeing visions of a possible future?

"I believe he is outside," said 3PO.

Luke opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and walked out. If there was any consolation, there were dozens of Ewoks who looked nearly as pained as him. They were lying all over the place. Was it possible that the same vision had gone to them?

That didn't seem right.

But Luke only knew the basics of the Jedi. Then he saw Han, who actually looked composed. He was reading a datapad quickly. Glancing up, he shuddered. "Luke, you're up."

Luke rubbed his head. "Han, what happened?"

Han blinked. "Don't you remember?"

"Just humor me," said Luke.

Han sighed. "I told you that you were drinking too much. Hokey force powers can't stop a hangover. Anyway, we won. Destroyed the Second Death Star, and we were having that party. Why do you ask?"

"I had this really strange dream where you and Leia named your son after Obi-Wan?" said Luke. Why was he calling it a dream?

Han blinked. "The old man? Why would we do that? No offense to him, Luke, but I barely knew the guy."

"I don't know, it seemed to make sense at the time," said Luke, coming to the edge of the balcony and looking down. "Anyway, so then he trained to become a Jedi, but I sensed darkness from him, so I... tried to kill him in his sleep?"

"That doesn't sound like you," noted Han.

"Yeah, I thought that, too," said Luke. "Then he woke up, defeated me and wiped out the academy-"

"Hang on, you were a Jedi Master by this point," said Han. "How could he defeat you and wipe out the whole academy?"

"I... don't know," said Luke. "But he went over to this Dark Lord named Snoke, who was even more powerful than the Emperor. Then they made an even bigger Deathstar called the Starkiller base. Then they destroyed five planets.

"Then the entire New Republic surrendered to the remnants of the Empire-"

"Luke, just stop," said Han. "Even if the Empire was stupid enough to build yet another Death Star, where would they get the resources? And even if they did blow up a planet, the rebellion wouldn't quit.

"They'd just go underground and blow it up some other way. We've had a lot of practice at this point. Whatever it was that made you see these things, I guarantee it isn't worth thinking about."

"But what if this is a warning from the future?" said Luke.

Han sighed. "Luke, every single person in the Galaxy told you that you had to kill Vader. Somehow you talked him into killing the Emperor and saving you.

"Now I'm not going to say that redeems him.

"But what does that say about you?"

Luke had to admit it didn't make sense. "But what if I change or fall to the Dark Side-"

"Forget it," said Han. "If Darth Vader wasn't evil enough for you to jump to patricide, there's no way you'd murder an innocent nephew. That's not you."

"Well, what do you think it was?" asked Luke.

Han looked at Luke flatly. "You drank too much last night. You got a bit carried away."

Luke considered all the holes in this so-called vision. It did seem more like a drug-induced hallucination, now that he thought of it. "...Yeah, you're probably right."

Then Leia rushed up. "Luke, Han!"

Luke glanced up. "Leia, what's going on?"

"I need both of you now," said Leia, hair let down. "Where have you been? We've got work to do."

"What's your hurry, Princess?" asked Han. "We beat the Empire."

"Don't play stupid, laserbrain," said Leia. "The entire Imperial Fleet has been thrown into chaos. The Rebel Alliance is about to start launching operations. They've called us back into action.

"It's not over yet."

Luke smiled. "Yeah, I guess it never is over, is it."

"You know the Empire is going to make up some story about how none of this ever happened, right? How the Emperor is secretly alive and recovering?" asked Han.

"The Empire can say what it likes," said Leia. "We're going to refound the New Republic and bring democracy back to the Galaxy. If they want to preen and posture about their glorious new order, they can.

"Let it fall down on them.

"Now come on, we've got to get back to the command ship."

Luke and Han followed.

Come to think of it, the vision really didn't make sense. Luke could believe that he might become so twisted and deranged as to kill a family member. But in what possible universe would the Empire be stupid enough to keep building Death Stars?

* * *

**Author's Note:**

This is the real ending to Rise of Skywalker. J.J Abrams just forgot to put it in. I was very impressed with Disney, going to all the trouble to make it seem as if they were systematically destroying Star Wars. Only to toss the whole thing away for a throwaway gag. Plus, the whole 'no ones' ever really gone' gag, was clearly foreshadowing that the entire story was a drug-induced hallucination by Luke.

Although, I really should have seen the foreshadowing with the beginning of the Last Jedi. Truly a brilliant setup for the most spectacular joke in Star Wars history.


End file.
